About Us
History
The UWI established the Centre now the Institute for Gender and Development Studies in September 1993. The Regional Coordinating Unit is at the Mona Campus in Jamaica with units on each of the other campuses of the University: Cave Hill and St. Augustine. IGDS is an outgrowth of the path-breaking work of the Women and Development Studies Group and a project of Cooperation in Teaching and Research in Women and Development Studies (WDS) between the University of the West Indies and the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague.
Mission and Focus
IGDS: NBU is committed to a programme of teaching, research and outreach that:
- Questions historically accepted theories and explanations about society and human behaviour
- Seeks an understanding of the world which takes women, their lives and achievements into account
- Identifies the origins of power differences between women and men, and the division of human characteristics along gender lines
IGDS: NBU Cave Hill focuses on:
- Building Caribbean feminist scholarship.
- Securing the foundation established within the academy on women studies and gender analysis as a valid discipline for teaching and research.
- Contributing to scholarship on Caribbean masculinity.
- Building awareness among women and men of the pervasiveness and outcomes of unequal relations of gender.
- Providing a forum for debate, discussion and dissemination of information on all aspects of gender in Caribbean society.
- Producing research to influence policy that seeks to create a just society for Caribbean children, women and men.
The Institute's specific objectives are to:
- Introduce and maintain an integrated, interdisciplinary programme of gender and development studies including incorporation of gender issues in the content of disciplines within the University.
- Generate research data on women and/or gender-related issues in the Caribbean.
- Develop and facilitate a programme of outreach to the Caribbean community including linkages with, and empowerment of national and regional institutions concerned with gender and development.